Fully undercut sidepods

[manchild]

Here is something more conventional than what I’ve posted before.

Fully undercut sidepods. Radiators positioned horizontally on the bottom of sidepod (if possible slightly bended). Air enters sidpod conventionally. Air leaves sidepods directly trough radiator below the sidepod. Stream below the sidepods generates slight decrease in pressure due to shape of sidepod enabling easier “exhaust” from the sidepod. No chimneys, no gills.

Advantages – lowered center of gravity, less disturbance of air flowing on top of the car towards the rear wing, increased downforce because sidpods are shaped even more like inverted aeronautical wing than nowadays.

Disadvantages… Well I’ll leave it up to you guys.

[DaveKillens]

First off, I really like the out-of-the-box thinking you are doing. It is creative, please don't allow criticism to cripple your imagination.
The bottom tray, the flat plane, how can you keep it from flexing so it doesn't become a skirt?
Is the pressure just above the bottom tray supposed to be high pressure or low? I do know it is critical, because it contains the sideways flow of air from under the body.
And the disadvantages? It has to have a higher center of gravity.

[manchild]

First off, I really like the out-of-the-box thinking you are doing. It is creative, please don't allow criticism to cripple your imagination.
The bottom tray, the flat plane, how can you keep it from flexing so it doesn't become a skirt?
Is the pressure just above the bottom tray supposed to be high pressure or low? I do know it is critical, because it contains the sideways flow of air from under the body.
And the disadvantages? It has to have a higher center of gravity.

Thanks Dave, let me answer on these…

Bottom tray, the flat plane is already wide out. Most of all it is not that thin that it would bend, its air stream exposed area would increase that much, especially having in mind that since 2005 it has been reduced by changes in front of the rear wheels. BTW, it would be good if it could became a skirt
Also, skirts had 90 degrees position relative to tarmac and here we’re talking about a plane parallel to tarmac.

The pressure above the bottom tray should be lower than atmospheric due to partial Venturi tube (inverted wing) shape of bottom of the sidepod. I said that I hope this would help air from the sidepods to exit (sidepod air pressure is higher than atmospheric). I think that such undercut could give more stability than common ones that are forcing the air to go widre sideways.

Current radiators reach almost up to drivers shoulders (in height) so I think that the ones I imagined would have lower center of gravity but that is not worrying me for it certainly wouldn’t increase center of gravity.

[bh]

Nice idea, except that I have a problem with the 2 90 degree bends the air must make to get through the radiator. That is asking a lot from air that is propelled by nothing but dynamic pressue and pressue differential.

The bend going into the radiator could be made fairly smooth with turning vanes and shaped sidepod, but the air exiting the radiator would be making an instantaneous 90 bend. The air out of that would be extremly turbulent.

I would say the idea is far more practical with a 45 or so degree radiator. One issue that you are neglecting is longitudinal CG. The radiators are a pretty heavy part, and you just shifted them back a ways.

Another issue is all of your turbulent, high temperature air is now flowing directly above the tunnel exits, and all of the air now goes underneath the rear wing (while currently, chimneys dump some of it outside of the wings). Whether or not these are bad things, I don't know. I have heard from a CART car aero guy that the slow moving turbulent air underneath the rear wing can be a good thing, from a maximum angle of attack standpoint.

Every design is a compromise of things. The current designs may not be the best, but the engineers have spent thousands upon thousands of hours figuring out the best way to deal with the compromises and the basic concepts have been tweaked to efficiency. It is very hard to make a radical change to a new idea that may seem better on paper, because there are so many new problems to deal with (think BMW nose of last year).

[mech_coen]

hey manchild, you keep on trying with this idea don't you??

well its great but wont the wheels break the aerodynamics? maybe you have to look at that point, for the rest its great

coen

[manchild]

Nice idea, except that I have a problem with the 2 90 degree bends the air must make to get through the radiator. That is asking a lot from air that is propelled by nothing but dynamic pressue and pressue differential.
The bend going into the radiator could be made fairly smooth with turning vanes and shaped sidepod, but the air exiting the radiator would be making an instantaneous 90 bend. The air out of that would be extremly turbulent.
I would say the idea is far more practical with a 45 or so degree radiator. One issue that you are neglecting is longitudinal CG. The radiators are a pretty heavy part, and you just shifted them back a ways.

Thanks,

I haven’t drawn any airbox that would direct the air onto radiators but since this is just a sketch I think that something with shape pretty similar to engine airbox would be quite functional without 90 degree bending.

That is asking a lot from air that is propelled by nothing but dynamic pressue and pressue differential..

Right, that is why had in mind sub-atmospheric pressure between the sidepod and the floor.

I would say the idea is far more practical with a 45 or so degree radiator. One issue that you are neglecting is longitudinal CG. The radiators are a pretty heavy part, and you just shifted them back a ways.

I haven’t defined the position and the angle of radiator. Sketch only shows the principle. I agree that diferent angle could be better. Also, if you look closely they are at least at same longitudinal position as conventional ones (if not even more forward). Anyway, once again that is only a sketch. I’d prefer if they could be more narrow and longer that conventional radiators (less squarish).

Another issue is all of your turbulent, high temperature air is now flowing directly above the tunnel exits, and all of the air now goes underneath the rear wing (while currently, chimneys dump some of it outside of the wings). Whether or not these are bad things, I don't know. I have heard from a CART car aero guy that the slow moving turbulent air underneath the rear wing can be a good thing, from a maximum angle of attack standpoint.

I haven’t gone trough any rear end aero thinking regarding this idea.

Every design is a compromise of things. The current designs may not be the best, but the engineers have spent thousands upon thousands of hours figuring out the best way to deal with the compromises and the basic concepts have been tweaked to efficiency. It is very hard to make a radical change to a new idea that may seem better on paper, because there are so many new problems to deal with (think BMW nose of last year).

I know. Regarding Williams’s nose last year – no one proved that it was killing the car’s performance more than that outdated sidepods and problematic engine they had in the first part of 2005 season. I believe that such nose on double keel chassis is best we’ve seen. It’s just like with good driver in bad car – quality can’t be shown.

[manchild]

hey manchild, you keep on trying with this idea don't you??
well its great but wont the wheels break the aerodynamics? maybe you have to look at that point, for the rest its great
coen

It is more conventional than one you're thinking of
What can I do, it seams that being radical doesn't pays

Sidepods on this particular one have conventional width and position of inlets so there shouldn’t be same problems as with original “trimaran – tunnel” concept.

[RH1300S]

This reminds me of the 1992 Ferrari F92 A. Does anyone know the thinking behind the twin floor concept at the time and why it failed? AFIK, the basic thinking was fairly sound, but the execution was dire (not just chassis, but engine too).

I know this is not the same idea as your design manchild - thought you might be interested to see it.

[manchild]

This reminds me of the 1992 Ferrari F92 A. Does anyone know the thinking behind the twin floor concept at the time and why it failed? AFIK, the basic thinking was fairly sound, but the execution was dire (not just chassis, but engine too).

I know this is not the same idea as your design manchild - thought you might be interested to see it.

I'm quite aware of how Ferrari from 1992 looked like (I was 19 back than ). Even more, they repeated almost identical design on their car from 1996...

1992http://www.ferrari-f1.nl/1992_gallery.phtml

1996http://www.ferrari-f1.nl/1996_gallery.phtml

http://perso.wanadoo.fr/eric.evain/f92.htm

http://www.ultimatecarpage.com/frame.ph ... carnum=180

[Divia]

lol man nice thinking! Its quite an interesting concept

[kilcoo316]

few things

1. It is directing the air through the sidepod down - that is creating an upforce on the sidepod "roof"/airbox roof whatever you want to call it

2. It is directing hot air onto the rear tyres, which will melt them

3. There will be a stagnation point below the radiator which will somewhat inhbit the flow of air through the radiator from above

4. It is interferring with the flow to the diffuser in a very big way

5. Hot air rises

6. I read a book a while back (dont ask me the name, it was a long while back!) that indicated with good sidepod and radiator design it is possible to generate a thrust from the whole arrangement by expanding and thus slowing the flow before the radiator, then converging/accelerating it out of the sidepod. I don't know if that is possible with this layout

[manchild]

1. It is directing the air through the sidepod down - that is creating an upforce on the sidepod "roof"/airbox roof whatever you want to call it

No it doesn’t because the air doesn’t bounces of the track but hits the floor/mixes with air flowing between sideopod and the floor. There is no action-reaction there.

2. It is directing hot air onto the rear tyres, which will melt them

Approximately 90 degrees C of cooling liquid can’t heat up the air that flows trough radiator gills and than mixes with huge amount of cold air before it reaches the rear end so much that it could melt anything. Melting is out of the question (BTW operating temperature of an F1 tyre is quite similar to operating temperature of cooling liquid). Also, the air from the sidpods doesn’t hit the rear tyres solely but flows mixed with huge mass of cold air.

3. There will be a stagnation point below the radiator which will somewhat inhbit the flow of air through the radiator from above

Below the radiator is the point of highest air speed due to shape of sidepod’s bottom. Also the pressure from the sidepod thrusts the air trough the gills, so that is the point with high dynamics – least passive point of the sidpod.

4. It is interferring with the flow to the diffuser in a very big way

The air flowing trough diffuser is picked up below the cars bottom (at front) not from any point above or sideways.

5. Hot air rises

Certainly!

6. I read a book a while back (dont ask me the name, it was a long while back!) that indicated with good sidepod and radiator design it is possible to generate a thrust from the whole arrangement by expanding and thus slowing the flow before the radiator, then converging/accelerating it out of the sidepod. I don't know if that is possible with this layout

It might be so but I don’t believe in definitive/untouchable concepts.

[West]

You should submit these ideas next year for Altran Academy thingy (the Renault F1 internship)

Oh wiat ur said ur 19 in 1992... may be a little too old for it.

[manchild]

You should submit these ideas next year for Altran Academy thingy (the Renault F1 internship)

Oh wiat ur said ur 19 in 1992... may be a little too old for it.

[-(

[Guest]

does anyone know who has one that renault internship in the past? what countries?